Something for Nothing

The Gift Came With a Cost

An old friend recently shared a situation he found himself in and asked for advice.

Basically, back in the 1980s, when my friend was headed to college, his father gifted him with a large thermos. This gift was both thoughtful and useful and continues to be used even now. The problem is, he suspects it was acquired in a less-than-honest manner.

“It’s just a thermos,” you might be saying right about now. Except it isn’t quite that simple.

“Dad wasn’t a coffee drinker and never owned one like this,” said my friend. “Based on what I now know, that gift I received may not have been purchased with me in mind but acquired through an opportunity.”

While the exact opportunity isn’t clear, think of a scenario such as two men playing golf together and riding home in the same car, with one forgetting his thermos and the other, instead of returning it, saying, “Hey! Free thermos!”

A few years after receiving his gift, its possible rightful owner spotted it being used and suggested it might be theirs.

“I told him how I acquired it and thought nothing more of it for years,” said my friend. “Being young, it never occurred to me my father hadn’t returned his friend’s thermos and had presented it as a gift instead.”

He continued, “My dad is always telling stories about a retail clerk ringing an item up wrong. Last week he walked out of a store with a $200 car battery for about $10. He knows there was a mistake made by someone and takes advantage of it.”

When you combine years of stories of clerk errors with the situation with the thermos, it starts to paint that person in a different light.

So what do you do with this knowledge?

Do you mention it to your parent, who is still alive? To your siblings? Do you return the thermos to the surviving spouse of the friend with a note of apology, explaining what might have occurred?

“It doesn’t make me dislike my dad,” he said, “but does give a sense of disappointment.”

The situation prompted me to think about something that happened when I was a child, and my family went out for dinner. We were seated beside a table of maybe eight or ten people and watched as the matriarch put the tip — which appeared to be quite a few ones — under the pitcher. As they were going out the door, a man from their group hurried back to the table and swiped almost the entire tip.

It happened so fast I doubt my parents gathered their thoughts enough to say something before the man was gone. Instead, they pulled out some cash of their own and quietly put it under the pitcher on the neighboring table. The waitress likely wasn’t even aware.

This is the memory I’m lucky enough to carry around, while my friend carries doubt over his gift and feels a twinge of guilt when it’s used.

Even though the potential offense in this situation is admittedly minor, it reveals something about the core of the person. If they would take this kind of liberty, aren’t there others they would also take? How far would they go? For my old friend to be so bothered by the situation reveals much about his own character. It says the sins of the father aren’t likely being carried on by his son.

I’ve seen a quote about how our character is defined by what we do when we think no one is looking.

No one might’ve been looking when that thermos was left. But it wasn’t free.

It came with a cost.